A Year With Kirby CMS
It’s been a year since I migrated this site to Kirby CMS, let’s talk about how that’s gone…
So when I wrote about migrating to Kirby CMS, I closed the post by saying:
You know me, dear reader, a year from now I could well be running something completely different to power this blog.
Well, it's been a year and I can honestly say that not once have I had the desire to move to another platform. As time has progressed, I've continued to hone the panel to exactly how I want it and the result is a platform that feels like it's tailored just for me. Actually, no. It's a platform that is tailored just for me.
I love it.
So what have I done in the last year to improve things? Well, I changed the panel from a simple list of posts with a sidebar that contains a list of pages, to a full dashboard that allows me to manage the most important aspects of this site from a single place. Here's a before and after:
As you can see, I now have tabs at the top of the panel that flick me straight to the most important parts of the site and each tab has it's own UI depending on the content it needs to display.
Learning PHP
Over the last year, I've also been doing a PHP course on Udemy that has allowed me to use this site as a playground for my learning.
Coupled with what I've learned about Kirby over the last year, their amazing documentation and fantastic forums, I've been able to add a few really cool features. What's even better is because I've coded them myself from scratch, I've been able to implement them exactly how I want. It's been so much fun.
Some of the features I've added are:
- A Guestbook
- A log of which watch from my collection I'm wearing that automatically posts to Mastodon
- My notes section, again that automatically posts to Mastodon
- A password protected page for my Ko-fi supporters that allows them to suggest post topics and vote on existing drafts (I since removed this feature as I decided monetisation isn't for me)
- Automatically generated featured images for social media
There's other things that I'm thinking about adding in the future, I just need to find the time. I also want to be cognisant of bloat on the site though. First and foremost, it's a blog. I need to remember that.
Anyway, I digress...
Using Kirby continues to be an absolutely joy. I really can't see myself leaving the platform any time soon. With all the WordPress drama going on right now, if you're thinking about jumping ship to another CMS, I strongly recommend Kirby.
Want more?
So you've read this post and you're still not satisfied? Ok then, here's some other stuff for you to do: